


call it what you want

by goldtreesilvertree, mothwrites



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Android!Hera, F/M, High School AU, hera pretends to be a teenager to gather information for GF, warning for pryce denying hera's personhood as usual, we listen to a lot of taylor swift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 07:19:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldtreesilvertree/pseuds/goldtreesilvertree, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwrites/pseuds/mothwrites
Summary: “There you are,” Miranda says, surveying her with those glowing eyes. She’s forgotten to turn the overhead lights on again, and the effect would be eerie if Hera wasn’t used to it. “Why don’t you answer when I call you, 214?”Hera folds her arms, trying to remember Eiffel’s ‘sulky teenager’ lessons. Body language. Tone. “Do you want something? I have homework.”





	call it what you want

_I recall late November, holding my breath_

_Slowly I said, "You don't need to save me_

_But would you run away with me?"_

Hera’s good mood lasts for all of 2.3 seconds after she walks through her front door. She dumps her schoolbag by the hall dresser because she knows she hates it when she’s not tidy, and reluctantly follows the voice calling her to the study.

“There you are,” Miranda says, surveying her with those glowing eyes. She’s forgotten to turn the overhead lights on again, and the effect would be eerie if Hera wasn’t used to it. “Why don’t you answer when I call you, 214?”

Hera folds her arms, trying to remember Eiffel’s ‘sulky teenager’ lessons. Body language. Tone. “Do you want something? I have homework.”

“Report first.” Maybe for other people, that would mean talking about grades and teachers and tests. Hera wishes it was that simple.

“All systems nominal,” she sighs. “I had a glitch during math, but everyone thought it was a sneeze.”

“Another one?” She clicks her tongue in disappointment, sounding almost metallic. “Do I need to debug your programming again, 214?”

Hera would usually vigorously refuse - it hurts - but she remembers that she does actually need to be on Miranda’s good side tonight. There’s a slip of paper burning in her pocket. “I don’t think that’s necessary, thank you.”

“Hm.” She sounds suspicious, but she always sounds suspicious. “Anything else of note to report?”

Hera’s fingers close around the flyer in her cardigan pocket. “I got an invitation,” she starts to say, warily. It wasn’t really an invitation for her, but they had been passed out all through homeroom and Eiffel had pressed his copy into her hands with a pleading smile.

Miranda takes it from her, examines it clinically. “A party. Are you certain that’s a good idea, 214?”

“It would be a good information-gathering exercise,” Hera argues. She’s been thinking of excuses all the way home. 

“And a test of your abilities.” She flicks the leaflet shut to the sound of nails rasping on paper. “You may go. Provided you keep your… glitches under control.”

Eiffel would have made a joke, flourished an imaginary wand: ‘You shall go to the ball, Cinderella’. But Hera’s circuits are buzzing under her skin, running too fast, too hot. There’s a catch. There’s always a catch.

“Thank you,” she says, trying not to sound wary. “Am I… dismissed?”

She gives a curt nod, but as Hera gets to the door, so close to something like freedom… “And 214?”

Her hand pauses on the doorknob. “Yes, Miranda?”

“Don’t forget the purpose of this experiment.” Don’t forget what you are.

_How could I?_ Hera thinks, but she says: “Of course not.”

“Then you’re dismissed.” Miranda looks back down to her work, as if Hera’s already gone. No, as if Hera’s nothing to look at at all, like any other furniture. It shouldn’t sting. It does.

She takes the stairs up to her ‘room’ two at a time, running for the cellphone Miranda had only let her have because she’d pointed out that it would look ‘weird’ if a normal 17-year-old girl didn’t have one. And wasn’t that the point of all this, pretending to be normal? Eiffel’s number is one of only a handful she has, and it always comes up first. It rings for 7.023 seconds.

“Hera?” He’s smiling, she can hear it. It helps a little.

She’s too excited for greetings. “She said I can go!”

“She did? That’s great!” He sounds almost as happy as she feels. “This is going to be such a great time, Hera, I promise-”

But she has a million questions. “I’ve never done this before! What do I wear? What happens there? Do I have to bring anything?”

He laughs, “There’ll be fireworks, if Jacobi has anything to do with it. Probably whatever alcohol they can sneak in, but you won’t have to worry about that. Maybe some dancing, but you’re great at that already. Nothing too stressful, I promise.”

Hera feels the relief. She can store a decent amount of liquid, but acting ‘drunk’ wasn’t something she’d been looking forward to, and she doesn’t like lying around Eiffel more than she already has to. “You don’t know I can dance,” she accuses.

“Call it faith, and having seen you in Music,” he teases, “Anyway, you can’t be a worse dancer than Minkowski, so just stand near her if you’re worried.”

“Okay,” she giggles. Maybe she can ask Minkowski what she should wear. Her wardrobe is limited, but she has an allowance for ‘generic teenage activities’ that she never gets to use. Her research has told her that Eiffel really isn’t the person to ask for fashion tips. “Are all your friends going?”

“I’m pretty sure everyone’s going to be there. It’s a big house, though, so we can sneak off if it gets too much for you.”

Eiffel thinks she has an anxiety disorder. Maybe she does. “I’ll be fine,” she promises him. “I’m really excited. I get a whole night away from my mother.”

“And you can never have enough of those.” He’s still trying to sound like he’s joking, but there’s a sadness under his smile. 

Hera looks around her room. There’s a desk, a dresser and a chair, and a few posters and drawings she tacked up herself. No bed. The rest of the space is filled with servers and charging ports. “You can say that again.”

“I could come break you out, if you like. Get up to some normal teenage trouble-making, you’re still behind on that.”

The lie is that she was homeschooled for ten years. “I’d be grounded until the next century,” Hera tells him, and that’s probably true. She can be reactivated at any time. “Besides, what if she saw you?”

“I can be stealthy. She’d never know you were gone, it’s not like she checks. Come on, Hera, live a little?”

It would be good advice if she were truly alive. “Not worth it,” she sighs. “If she catches me it’s bye-bye party.”

“Good point. Soon, though?” he pleads, “We can… I don’t know, get milkshakes or something wholesome and normal.” But I’m not normal, she replies in her head, but that’s not what Eiffel means. “You deserve some normal.”

“Soon,” she says, trying not to make it sound like a promise. Something in her research stirs. Pop culture references of teenagers sharing milkshakes. Two straws. A date? 

“It’ll be fun, get you out of the house, and your mom can’t have a problem with milkshakes,” he continues, “You could even bring your homework for bonus points.”

“My mother has a problem with everything. But I’ll try, okay?”

“As long as you don’t get in trouble,” he concedes. He worries a lot about getting her in trouble for someone who claims to hate rules. 

“Okay. Go do your homework, okay? I know you’re behind on physical sciences.”

“You do your homework,” he retorts, and if they were together he might stick his tongue out at her or make a face. “Look after yourself, sweetheart. See you tomorrow?” 

“See you tomorrow,” she echoes, and listens to the long beep after he hangs up.

_> >> checklist entry - variant 02 - school_   
_\- Tidy synthetic hair_

_\- Check outer skin for marks_    
_\- Pick out clothes that correspond to temperature (41°F, late Fall) and current fashions_    
_\- Pack schoolbag (books, homework, pencil case, purse)_

It’s at least an hour before she actually has to leave to get the school bus. She hates the school bus - way too much stimuli in an enclosed space. Miranda could drive her, easily, but then where would she get the experience?

Miranda’s already awake when she walks downstairs. She looks at Hera with a raised eyebrow, and she doesn’t need to say a word for Hera to know that she’s forgotten something. Is it a social cue? “Good morning,” she says tentatively.

“Tell me what’s wrong with this picture, 214,” Miranda sighs.

Hera looks down at herself. She’d thought the outfit she’d picked out was rather cute, actually, and - oh. “Shoes,” she mumbles. She’s barefoot. It doesn’t make a difference to her comfort, of course, but people would talk if she walked over frosty sidewalks in November barefoot. “I’m sorry, I’ll go get them-”

“The simplest things, 214. Shoes. How can I trust you to go out to parties when you forget such minutia?”

“I was in a hurry,” Hera protested. “I’m sorry.”

Miranda clicks her tongue. “Go get them. And don’t dawdle on your way home today. Marcus is coming to visit to see your progress.”

She runs up the stairs, pauses at the door to her room, and carefully doesn’t slam it behind her. She hates progress reports, being stared at and prodded while they talk over her head. At least when the other students at school stare at her they don’t poke her. But Mr Cutter at least calls her by her name, and pretends to be interested in her feelings. Miranda just doesn’t care. She pulls on her boots with more force than she needs to, and clomps back downstairs to be evaluated for the second time.

“I didn’t forget my coat,” she says before Miranda can point it out. “It’s hanging up by the door.”

“Better.” Miranda turns back to her laptop, inspection complete. Hera stops existing again.

Hera practically runs to the bus stop, and once she’s settled in the deserted sidewalk, pulls out a library book from her bag. Miranda doesn’t approve of reading for pleasure. She doesn’t understand why Hera bothers when she can download any book to her servers and read it in a millisecond. But Hera likes thumbing through the pages, slowing her brain down to absorb every single word at a human speed. It’s calming.

She’s almost halfway through when Eiffel arrives. He used to be late for the bus everyday without fail, until she mentioned getting there early most days. Now he’s tired and slurping coffee as if he’s dying of thirst, but he still smiles at her as he sits down.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he grins, dumping his bag beside hers. “Please tell me you did better with Physics than me?”

“Probably,” she teases him. “I suppose you want to look at mine?”

“Angel of science,” he beams, pretending to bow to her. “What would I do without you?”

“Fail. Miserably.” She pulls the worksheet out of the folder in her bag and gives it to him. “Don’t tell Renée, okay?”

“Our secret,” he promises her. “I’m not dealing with another lecture on the criminal nature of plagiarism.”

“Me neither,” Hera agrees. “Do you think she’d help me get ready for the party? I’ve never - well, I’ve never even been to a party before.”

He sighs, “Of course you haven’t. Don’t worry, she’ll help you, she likes you.”

“I like her too.” She likes most of Eiffel’s friends and acquaintances - except Maxwell, who she’s wary of because the girl loves researching Goddard’s AI developments and already has a scholarship to MIT under her belt. She’d be obsessed if she found out who Hera’s ‘mother’ was. “It’s this weekend, right? That’s not far away.”

“Can’t come quick enough. Have you ever seen Jacobi’s fireworks before? They’re fantastic.” He keeps talking about the party, and she ought to be taking mental notes on this, but it’s distracting, when he’s enthusiastic about something. When he smiles it’s infectious, never mind that she isn’t programmed to catch anything, feelings as much as illnesses.

He keeps talking as the bus pulls up. It’s run by an autopilot, and it isn’t a sentient model, but Hera still always feels guilty when she steps aboard. Eiffel runs ahead and catches the last free seat for her, then stands next to her, clinging onto the pole. He doesn’t stop talking the entire time, and it’s grounding, somehow.

“What’ve you got after school today?” he asks, drawing her back to the moment, “Some of us were going to hang out in the park while it’s still dry.”

She almost says yes, because it does sound like an invitation, before she remembers. “My uncle is coming to visit,” she sighs. She can’t remember if that’s the official line, but it’ll do. “I have to be in all night.”

“Commands from on high? Damn.” He looks disappointed. “Still, he’ll be gone before the party, right? And your mom might let you out so you and Minkowski can talk clothes.”

“Yeah, if she gets a personality transplant. He’s only here for one night, don’t worry.” She shouldn’t joke about personality transplants. They are, in fact, a thing.

“As long as we get you back soon. And if he’s as bad as your mom, I’m just a call away, babe.” He makes a phone gesture with his hand, and stumbles as the bus stops, nearly falling into her lap. “Sorry, sorry!”

“It’s okay,” she giggles. “And he’s not… as bad, I guess.”

“Like that’s hard,” he snorts, and holds out a hand to her. It takes a moment for her to realise he wants to help her up. His hand curls around hers. The sensors in her artificial skin tell her the exact temperature of his skin and analyse the components in his sweat. She doesn't need the sensors to tell her it feels... nice.

"Thanks," she says, and smiles. She Isn't sure whether she's supposed to drop his hand or not, but he makes the decision for her, swinging it playfully as they disembark.

"Do we have time to grab coffee before class?" he wonders aloud, looking at her with a half-smile that she knows means 'we could skip it if we wanted to'. "Minkowski's not in Physics with us, right?"

"Why are you more scared of Renée than the teacher?"

"Because she manages to make 'disappointed' a scary word?" He retorts. "It's worse than being in class with my mom!"

She runs a quick simulation of being in class with her 'mom'.  The results aren't positive. "We have time to get coffee," she says. "We have twelve-point-five minutes."

"Plenty of time!" He grins, pulling her along after him. 

It's not 'plenty of time', the cafeteria's coffee is always served much too hot in the hope that students won't try and drink it all in one gulp, but when Eiffel's talking it's easier not to hear the microseconds until she should be in class tick down inside her head. The whole day is easier when he's with her, and she doesn't have to count down to her 'review' from Pryce and Cutter in the evening. The thought doesn't make her feel sick, exactly – she doesn't have the sensors for nausea – but there Is a hyperawareness to every fractal moment that slips through her fingers. Hera hates review days, but she's just got to get through this evening and then there'll be the party, and maybe Miranda will let her out of the house more if she sees she's progressing-

That hopeful line of thought is smothered as she slips in the front door after school. They're waiting for her in the hall, and she wonders how many of her classmates go home to similarly expectant creators.

"Unit 214." Miranda's voice is cool and precise, and if there's pride in there, it isn't directed at Hera.

"Dr Pryce." She tries to match her tone, even though she knows it will get her told off. "Mr Cutter, sir."

"You are..." There's an almost incremental pause, but longer than it would take Hera to calculate, "2.7 minutes late. And I told you Marcus would be here."

"The bus hit a pothole." It's a lie. She likes lying. She missed the first bus home because she was busy finishing her book. There are two new ones from the library in her satchel.

"It's alright, Hera, I was running late anyway." Cutter smiles at her. It's not a real smile, not like Eiffel's or Renée's, but it's the same smile for everyone, including her. "Miranda, don't intimidate her. How are we supposed to review her development if she's not running optimally?"

"It, Marcus. Don't intimidate it. And if it's feeling intimidated, that's because it knows it's done something wrong," Miranda points out.

"Busses hit potholes all the time." He waves a hand dismissively, as if bored of the argument before it's properly begun, "and I'm not here to talk about them. I'm here to review my _favourite_ project. Well, Hera? How would you say you've been progressing? You've had nearly a full year at school now, would you say you're improving?"

"I have straight A's," Hera replies. "A* in music."

"Miranda's been sending me your report cards. It's very impressive, but you know that's not what I come here to ask about." The hall is below optimum temperature for humans, and Hera's artificial skin is goose-pimpled and uncomfortable, but Pryce and Cutter don't seem bothered. "What about your social processing? Have you been making friends?"

"Don't _romanticise_ it, Marcus." Miranda rolls her eyes. "It doesn't have friends, any more than we do."

"I have friends," Hera argues, and raises her voice by a few decibels to make a point.

"Excellent emotional simulation," Cutter praises her. "You should be very proud."

"I'm going to a party at the weekend," Hera adds, before Pryce can reply. "With my friends."

Cutter's eyes widen with delight, and he looks over her head to Pryce. "Just the kind of development we've been looking for. See? I said she was ready for the project. You should have more faith in your work, Miranda."

Hera runs through her recent memory files, but 'the project' doesn't ring any bells, as Eiffel would say. "What am I ready for?" She asks.

"We're just finishing up this stage of our research," he smiles, as if it's nothing to worry about, and turns back to Pryce. "Shut her down at the end of the semester and see how we can transfer her upgraded neural net to our next line of AIs?"

Hera's so shocked that she forgets to renew her human bodily process simulations for a whole three seconds. "You're... going to kill me?"

"Of course not," he says, in a voice that isn't at all reassuring, "We're just moving you along to the next stage. You'll still run, just... differently."

"But I don't want to run differently!" She re-runs the last thirty seconds of speech in her head, but she can't make it mean anything else. If she had to breathe, Hera knows, she'd be hyperventilating.

Pryce looks irritated, as if this has ruined her evening plans. "Now look what you've done. It's glitching." She sniffs, turning to Hera. "214, execute debugging cycle, and stop clenching your fists, that chassis was more expensive to build than you."

Just like that, she's dismissed. They don't even look at her any more. She runs the debugging cycle as she runs upstairs, but it doesn't work. She's not glitching, she's scared. She calls Eiffel, not bothering to find her cellphone.

"Hera?" He sounds sleepy, like he fell asleep over his homework again. She doesn't have the processing power to run the right tones of voice, the right patterns over the fear, she just talks.

_"Please_ come get me," she says, and rattles off the address.

"Sure, right away," he says, and though she can tell there are a thousand questions he's waiting to rattle off, she hangs up. It's much less time than it should be before she hears a stone clatter against her window.

Hera leans out of the window, thinking of how expensive her chassis is. Expensive and durable. She jumps.

"Hera!" It's only after he grabs for her that she remembers her bedroom is two storeys up. "The fuck did they do to you? Are you hurt? Don't scare me like that..." He tails off, wrapping his arms around her tightly. Not an effective way to check for damage, but he's warm and alive and her sensors are all telling her these are good things right now.

She estimates that they have a precious 60 seconds before Miranda reaches the back door. "I'll explain, but – drive."

He listens, towing her to the car around the corner and kicking it into gear with a clunk.

"What happened?" He repeats, looking at her again as if checking for damage. But his hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "What did they do?"

Hera runs three through options. 1: She tells him the truth. He crashes the car. She gets shut down. 2: She tells him the truth. He realises he's stealing the world's most advanced piece of AI tech, gives her up to the authorities, and drives away. She gets shut down. 3: She lies. He takes her back to Pryce's house in the morning. She gets shut down.

"I don't want to talk about it," she says, finally. It's the one path she can't account for.

"Okay." He doesn't look at her. "That's okay, that's a trauma thing, right? Is there anywhere I can take you? To Minkowski or- or the police, I don't know-"

"Not the police." She almost laughs to think about it. "Can we – Can we just drive around? I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. I don't-" Hera stops as she feels herself start to glitch. "Oh, no-"

There's a horrible, undisguisable synthetic buzz as it begins, her sensors whiting out momentarily, and she knows there's no way she can disguise this as a sneeze. He's going to realise, he's going to take her back- but when her visual scanners come back online she realises he's half-pulled her into his lap, and there's a moment of panic before she registers that the car isn't moving.

"Hera," he says, slightly muffled by her hair. "What the fuck was that?"

She clings to him a little tighter. Eiffel gave her the very first hug she ever had. She thinks this might be the last. "I'm so sorry," she whispers.

He gives a disbelieving little laugh, "Why are you sorry? I just want to know you're-" Human? Please don't say human, "alright," he finishes, adjusting a little so he can hold her more securely. "What the hell was that noise?"

She can't remember when she activated her crying protocol, but she can feel it happen. "That was me," she sobs.

"I notice- oh Hera, don't cry," he pleads, burying his face in her hair and not letting her go. "Sh, it's okay, you make freaky robot noises sometimes, no big deal, just- shh, I've got you."

To her disappointment and panic, she cries even harder. "I'm not a robot!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" He adjusts one arm, clumsily trying to help her wipe away the tears. She's going to run out of her internal fluid stores at this rate. "You're not a robot," he soothes, "and that's okay too, just- look, we can sit out here all night if that's what you need. Just let me help you?"

"Robots are non-sentient, automated machines," she tells him, still crying, and distantly realises she's switched to being upset about the wrong thing. "I'm sentient! I'm a person! And they're going to shut me down!"

_"What-_ " There is a pause as Eiffel's brain catches up with his mouth. He's surprisingly quick at that for someone without built-in RAM. "Who's shutting you down? That's basically murder-"

"My mother. Except she's not my mother. And-" she draws back, staring at him, trying to analyse his facial expression. It's not the one she simulated. "You should look more shocked," she says.

"...I used up 'shocked' when you called me to pick you up after dark," he shrugs, "and it... kind of makes sense. You always did have a sci-fi vibe," he adds, trying to give her a teasing grin, then: "Fuck, that was probably offensive, wasn't it? Minkowski's been calling me on that, I swear I'll do better-"

"You don't care that I'm not human?" She asks, interrupting him.

"You're still you," he says, as if it's obvious, and then: "Shit, that was the wrong thing, please don't cry any more-"

"I don't think I can make it stop, the command line is stuck," she explains, with artificial tears running down her face. They'll dry up soon enough. "I'm just... I don't know what to do. I just involved you in a serious crime! And now I'll never..."

_"_ Never what? Hera, I swear, I'm going to get you out of this-" He's rubbing circles into her shoulders, something that shouldn't have had any effect on her processes, but- "Just tell me what you need. Do you have stuff I need to get you? Like- you know I'm shit with computers – like a charger or something?"

"Do I need a charger?" She almost laughs.

"I don't know, you don't eat food," he points out, a little nonsensically, and almost without noticing plants a kiss on the top of her head. Then he realises and turns an endearing shade of bright red.

Hera thinks that, if she's going to be shut down tomorrow, she wants to be kissed properly. Just once. So she leans forwards, and presses her lips to his.

He makes a surprised noise, but before she can pull away he's kissing her back, hands tangling in her synthetic hair and resting at the back of her neck, and it should be too much for her sensors to process but it's perfect. 

"Hera?" He says, nervously, when she finally draws back to let him breathe (humans forget to breathe when you distract them, right?), "That wasn't a 'now-or-never' kiss, right? You don't think I'd send you back there?"

"No. None of your behaviour suggests that." But she has to be sure. "You wouldn't, would you?"

"No." His arms tighten around her protectively, as if he'd rather hold her there forever. "I don't care what I have to do, I'm not letting anyone shut you down."

She knows, logically, that there's no way he can outrun Goddard Futuristics. That she can't survive on her power banks forever. She doesn't want him to miss any school, and she doesn't want to miss the party. But she looks at him with eyes that are still wet, and asks the impossible. "Would you run away with me?"

"Tonight?" He lays a hand against her cheek. "If that's what we have to do..." He sounds uncertain, but he doesn't let her go.

She runs through ideas. "After the party," she says suddenly. "She knows you're driving me home. We just... won't drive home. That gives us enough time to prepare, right? To get... supplies? Food, fuel... I can get us all the money we need, it's only pixels." She once created a passport for herself, just for fun. And a driving license. And a membership card for every library in America.

He blinks. "That... could work. We could do that." His hands settle at her waist, and he looks down at her like she's the smartest person he's ever met, like he never wants to stop looking at her, and she feels like she's been freshly recharged, like she could run forever if he kept looking at her like that. "You're amazing, you know that?"

Hera has been called many things – many compliments and assessments from her creators and supervisors – but they never felt like this. "You're..." She could never have simulated this. He surprises her at every turn. "So human," she says, smiling.

He wrinkles his nose, "What does that mean?" And it's so endearing she kisses him again. "Hera, what does that mean-"

"Whatever you want it to," she giggles. She doesn't quite understand how she's gone from crying to giggling in a matter of minutes. She thinks It's a sign that she's mastered human emotion – they're always so volatile. She finds that she quite likes it. The late November air raises bumps on her skin, but she doesn't notice. They're running away. She's finally going to be free.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title/inspo comes from taylor swift's "call it what you want", or more specifically the day when taylor swift released "call it what you want" and i messaged lottie saying "this is an eiffera au where hera's pretending to be a human highschool student and eiffel treats her like a human and they kiss" and lottie said "that's really specific, but i get you"


End file.
